Sometimes serious, sometimes funny, always trying to be warmth and light, focuses on parenting, and the unique struggles of raising a large Catholic family in the modern age. Updates on Sunday, Tuesday and Friday...and sometimes more!

Monday, December 7, 2009

It's The Thoughtlessness that Counts

Suffering from writer's block, enjoy another Christmas special recycled for your reading pleasure.This ran in the Island Park News on December 5th.

Men are hard to shop for, in my humble opinion. Perennial stand-bys like clothing, hobbies, sports and power tools feel rather like Ken doll accessories. Men don’t have an old-reliable, guaranteed “Oh Yes!” type gift like chocolate is for women.

The shops that cater to men smell like ancient leather-bound tomes on a library reference shelf. Their wares are usually are dull brown with a hunter green trim. Even the names of men’s stores seem like an afterthought; like the owner set up the shop and then said, “We should call this something. This store is for men. How about ‘Man’s Store?’ OK! We’re done.”

My husband likes gardening, so I’ve used that crutch for years. Receiving “practical” gifts has ensured my beloved can garden, hedge and weed whack the yard with the best of them, but there is a bit of a let down with these sorts of gifts. In the dead of winter, getting gardening equipment is like receiving electronic toys with batteries not included. He has to wait until the spring thaw to play.

When not giving him a new trowel, I have also admittedly used this season of giving to take care of necessities he needed. But let’s face it; socks wrapped up in a beautiful box are still just socks. My husband deserves an Oscar for his enthusiastic responses to my presents. I may buy them, he many need them, and he may use them; but the gifts themselves lack that lavish quality borne not from the price tag, but from the pleasure that even a passing mention of them might evoke.

I suspect it is lot easier shopping for me. Consider the Christmas day phone call to parents. My husband phones his mom, saying, “I got a shirt, some fishing tackle, a football jersey and a cordless drill.” It does not sound as exciting or evocative as my equivalent, “I got Godiva, a red sweater, a new purse, and a silver cuff.”

He had me at Godiva.

Even decades of receiving truffles has not ever made me think, “You gave me this last year!” In fact, the one year I didn’t get chocolate, I spent the rest of the morning sniffing around the tree to see if I’d missed a present.

My low water mark in gift giving came ten years ago. I ordered a book for my mother for Christmas. My family was coming to stay with us. The week of my parents’ visit, my Mom talked about how much she had enjoyed this book she found in my old room. It was the same book I had ordered for her. My thoughtful husband solved the problem by popping into a book store for some opera CD’s for me to give to her. But as we sat wrapping presents for my family and his, I suddenly realized I hadn’t purchased anything for him.

On Christmas morning, when he opened his lone present from me, he read aloud the book’s inscription, “I was thinking solely of you as I wrapped this gift. Better presents in the years to come, Love, Sher.”

Spousal love, and the fact that I had given birth two days before, mitigated my error, but I now shop for him first no matter what the holiday. I know my long suffering husband deserves better; something exclusive and passionate and fun. Maybe I'll stop by Man's store and pick up a new leather wallet and a hunter green tie./

The Chocolate Brain behind the Blog

My name is Sherry Antonetti. I write about the trials and humor of raising children, reflection articles on the Catholic faith lived, and profiles of everyday holiness. Why do I write on these things? To discover the deeper beauty of the martyrdom lived out moment by moment, and to avoid being discouraged or bogged down by minutia. Living out one's faith is an incremental experience of errands, stories, to do lists and details, it is not that we got to everything, but how we treated everyone in the process of trying to get to everything that reveals how much we live in the Holy Spirit, or how much we are estranged.

FAQ'S about this blog, a fabricated interview with footnotes.

Hi! Welcome to my blog. You can read my stuff here and at new.catholicmom.com. I publish there on Thursdays, with Small Successes!

FAQ's about this blog, a fabricated interview*

Q. Why CHOCOLATE FOR YOUR BRAIN?

A. You've heard of Chicken Soup for your Soul...well this is a similar principle. Chocolate, like laughter, produces endorphins in the brain, pleasant feelings, and that's what this blog is supposed to do.

Also, I have a pet theory about Comedy, that Good Humor is like a Chocolate Bar. It contains bits of nuts and a nougat of truth. The chocolate coating makes it go down easier, because no one wants to eat a bar of pure nougat.

Q. Why didn't you name your blog Chocolate for Your Brain in the URL?

A. Because I was new to the blogiverse and did not comprehend at that point how to make a blog much less market it, and therefore, I've just stayed with that URL which promotes my name but unfortunately tells the reader nothing about my blog or its clever title.

Q. It's your blog, why not change?

A. I'm a conservative Catholic, according to the news media, I fear change.

Q. That was funny! How do I leave a comment?

A. Scroll down to the bottom of the posted blog piece. It should look like this:

Q. How can I know if there's new stuff other than when you say you'll post?

A. At the bottom of the page, you'll see Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Click on it and you can receive automatic email updates that the blog has been updated. I do promise to update it on Sunday, Tuesday and Friday otherwise, so you can just check those times if you'ld rather.

Q. Why do you write a blog, it's not like you don't have other things to tend to, other things to do?

A. I like writing. I like writing to make people laugh. It's good practice for my brain. Consider these stories mental gymnastics, less time consuming than soduku and more fun.

Q. Why aren't all of your articles from the Beaumont Enterprise or Catholic Standard linked?

A. What a thoughtful and observant question! Most of the pieces I've written for both of these publications were not posted on their websites, so I have no links to post. But I've also been at this for now 7 years, so if I linked everything, there would be nothing but links and that gets tedious.Thanks for letting me clear that up.

Q. Aren't I you?

A. Well, yes. But this format made it so much easier to explain everything. Thank you for your time, that's all the questions for today folks.

Sherry, you're doing a heck of a job!

Editor's note from the *. Despite similarities --monitoring communications and fabricating interviews, this blog is NOT affiliated with FEMA in any way.

Despite being satirical on occasion against the current congress and administraiton, this site HAS not been fact checked by CNN.

This blog is not a construct of FOX news, talk radio or a limb of the Republican party or any vast right wing conspiracy.

Thoughts expressed here are my own and not underwritten by the insurance agencies or any other soul free corporations. (Believe me, I'd know if I was being paid).

WAXY CHEAP CHOCOLATE SOLD AT HOLIDAY TIMES IN THE PHARMACY

I work and I write and I suffer but don't feel any guilt about it because You are worth it.

No.No. You don't have to get me anything for Christmas either.

Why?

Because I love you. Not just you but the whole Blogosphere and the whole Blogging world. That's right, I'm just a sentimental ball of mush, sort of like a melted whopper you find underneath the car seat because some kid in the Halloween Candy screening process found and rejected a piece without first offering the offending Chocolate to his mother.

I feel so used.

NOTE: CHOCOLATE FOR YOUR BRAIN UPDATES on Sunday, Tuesday and Friday! Updates are guaranteed by 5:00 pm that day or your money back. What's that? You didn't pay? Wait.... How does this thing work?

Let me know how I'm doing folks! You can email me at sherryantonettiwrites@yahoo.com

Quotables from Sherry's Brain

On pain...

"I don't need anesthesia if I can still crack a joke."

On the absurdity of everyday minutia...

"What Would Flannery O'Connor do?"

On Excellence where ever it is pronounced by an official, movies, politics, books, policies, people...

"If this is the best there is, then man are we in trouble."

On viewing my own karotype after a DNA screening test...

"My geneotype came back normal so all my faults are of my own doing."

On humor:

"Laughter is priceless but don't worry, all of this blog is free."

On what God will say to me one day...

"I gave you all these people, all these gifts. What were you doing blogging away time on the internet?"

My E-Book On Sale!

Click on this to get your copy of The Book of Helen autographed!

WRITING MY NEXT BOOK

The working title is The Book of Penelope.
Continuing the story, we will discover the internal odyssey the wife of Odysseus took from the day he left her side until she finally reinvited him into her heart.
Currently at 75K...and counting. Goal 500 words a day. Stay tuned...

Prayer to the Holy Spirit by Cardinal Mercier

O Holy Spirit, beloved of my soul, I adore You.
Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me.
Tell me what I should do; give me Your orders.
I promise to submit myself to all that You desire of me and to accept all that You permit to happen to me. Let me only know Your Will.